This Indiana pilot program is feeding needy students — with food that once would have gone to waste

A pilot program involving five Indiana schools and a local non-profit seeks to provide to-go meals for students in need by making use of excess cafeteria food.

The partnership between Elkhart Community Schools and the northern Indiana non-profit Cultivate Culinary School & Catering began in March and is the starting point for a program that organizers hope to expand widely in the community, Randy Ziolkowski — Cultivate's co-founder and general manger — told USA TODAY on Wednesday.

Cultivate picks up excess cafeteria food — items that have been prepared but not served — from five Elkhart schools three times a week, said Ziolkowski, who goes by Randy Z. That food is taken back to Cultivate's facility and transformed into nutritionally balanced frozen to-go meals.

Currently, 20 students at one Elkhart school are receiving eight Cultivate meals weekly, Ziolkowski said. Those meals are delivered on a Friday in an insulated backpack and are intended to ensure students have food to eat over the weekend.

The students who receive the meals are assured a variety of food because their to-go meals are sourced from multiple locations, not just the school cafeteria donations, Ziolkowski said.

And those 20 students are just the beginning of the program, he hopes.

Cultivate has provided meals to students before, but Ziolkowski is excited about the partnership with Elkhart Schools. The non-profit works with multiple donors to repackage food that would have otherwise gone to waste, but finding enough food donations to meet the demand in the community is a challenge, he said.

A pilot program involving five Indiana schools is seeking to take unused cafeteria food that would have been wasted and repackage it into meals that help students in need.(Photo: Photo courtesy Cultivate Culinary School & Catering)

More than half of Elkhart Community Schools' 12,000 students qualify for free and reduced price lunches, CNN reports citing Natalie Bickel, Elkhart's supervisor of student services. She hopes to expand the partnership with Cultivate to all of the district's 21 schools.

Combating waste in school cafeterias is an issue that has been highlighted by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. In addition to donating excess food to charitable organizations, the USDA says schools have used strategies such as composting to help reduce waste.

The program was met with cheers when it was announced to cafeteria staff, Ziolkowski said. The non-profit, which has spent two years working to rescue excess food for charitable purposes, has been receiving media attention from across the country for the the new pilot program.